Tips for Senior Managers working for the first time with Virtual Teams

First: the Company Culture

The company culture is the key to a successful virtual team. The company and their HR department needs to help their senior managers learn how to work with virtual teams, adapt their procedures and embrace new ways of communicating with employees. They should also be open to new procedures. For example, team activities that might not be needed on ordinary teams are a must on virtual teams and will successfully improve motivation and productivity.

Second: the HR Department

The Human Resources department needs to understand the characteristics that distributed team members need to have. Not everybody is made for working on a distributed team. The person that works virtually needs to:

Be autonomous by nature

Have a certain degree of self-motivation

Be a good communicator, at least in writing

Share or relate to the company’s mission and vision

Third: Managers, shift the mindset

More and better

The managers in virtual teams need to work more effectively, think more and have more energy. This doesn’t mean they will end up tired and burnt out. It is the opposite; the more they give, the more they will receive from the team and the more fulfillment they will get.We recommend senior managers to:

Clarity

In order to boost productivity, the senior manager needs to take all the knowledge acquired over the course of her experience to think about what messages need to be communicated better with the team:

Clear objectives

Clear procedures

Clear expectations

“Super Communication”

To make messages clear, not only you need to have them in writing, but you need to repeat them several times and using different channels. A good manager will know when the right time is to give each message. In Managing Virtual Teams we call this “super communication” and when it happens, workers tend to reproduce the patterns they see in the manager and the entire organization works better.

Think motivation

If you have a motivated team, and you work constantly on keeping that motivation up, you will have fewer problems and when challenges happen, you will have a better response.

Technical Tools

On top of the technology and security needs that your project might have, we recommend all virtual and remote teams to use:

Video conferences as much as they can.

Online project management tools that show team objectives and achievements.

Testimonial

"Managing Virtual Teams (MVT) provided workable solutions that could be implemented right away for long term success. I went into the course hoping to grab a few tips and tricks but instead experienced a hands-on workshop that was tailored to my organization's needs." Megan West, Digital Communications Manager. Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI)